Greater Robust Dragon (Moved from FF)

[Fulgrate]

Hi, I'm Fulgrate, I've been drawing since I was little, but never took art seriously until a year and a half ago.

16 hours in Photoshop using Wacom Intuos3.

[Star Eater]

Don't use black for shading. Where is your light source?

Lay off the dodge and burn tools. The whole image is very flat at the moment.
Try reffing real animals that resemble your fantasy creature ie: Rhinos, lizards to see
how light plays on the texture of their skin and horns.

[arenhaus]

And try drawing with pencil on paper. Digital medium isn't the best for studying.

[Stoat]

I dunno. It has its own funky charm. I'd like to see a whole menagerie in this style.

[jamsession]

you have an understanding of how things work, i mean you have the "eye" for the stuff, which means tons of potential. it's just you need to practice and draw on frequent basis. i'd suggest you to sketch and draw from life whenever possible. with serious practice, you can rock the socks off the audience in around a year i guess.

[clifFroth]

I disagree, sometimes digital is superior for studying. It gets you past that whole 'I am putting pencil to paper actually creating something so I better make sure it is good' block that a lot of people tend to have. That can freeze you up. Quick sketching in something like SBP can be more immediate and there is less commitment to the piece itself since there is no physical medium. While i do sketch in my sketchbook (and any other scrap of paper I can find at work), if I am near my computer, i use the computer. The computer also gives you a quick method of reversing the image without having to use mirrors so that you can spot errors quicker.

[TinyBird]

I disagree, sometimes digital is superior for studying.

Except that when you sit on a computer, you are more than likely to just search for a photo to draw from instead of drawing something from life, which in this instance kinda defeats the point that the OP should study. Don't take this as "you can't practice with digital media", but beginners usually get caught on the things that don't matter or don't really help (disconnection with eye/hand, too small tablet, elaborate tools/brushes/colours that are tempting to use while at the same time it's harder to actually be experimental [compared to say, slapping watercolour, Copics and wooden pencil on one page], getting caught on rendering images and things that don't matter, the fact that you can even zoom your image and so on).
Not to mention it's not like the "fear of white paper" doesn't exist with digital medium or that you can't get over it with traditional paper. That's based on your personal mindset, not that digital would be superior for that.

[clifFroth]

Unless he has one of those creatures sitting around, he is going to have to search for photo reference anyway. My point was, the emphasis should be on the practicing part and not on the medium part. The implication that traditional media is better for practicing simply because it is traditional media is BS.

The temptation to leap in and do a full painting with traditional media is there as well. Of course the whole thing is a mind game you play with yourself. For some digital is better for others pencil and paper is.

[TinyBird]

UThe implication that traditional media is better for practicing simply because it is traditional media is BS.

Well thankfully I just explained why traditional media isn't better just because it's traditional.

[Theeroos]

When I draw with paper and pencil, I get my sketchbook out and start (sometimes I look for a reference first, and then start) When doing digital drawings for the first few times, I spend hours trying to figure out the program, playing around with brushes/tools/settings/filters and so on, without drawing a single thing. Tried to do speedpaintings, but wasted the entire day on getting "proper" brushes. Using a pencil is also much more natural (thus easier at first) than a tablet, which takes a while to get used to.
Traditional media is in the beginning definitely better for practicing, as there are no distractions, and you can focus purely on getting a good drawing. Once you can draw the basics, you can start playing around with digital and it becomes more of a personal thing which is better for studying. I'd say to do a mix of both (:

[Fulgrate]

Hello again, thank you very much for the feedback and critiques. I want to mention, that before moving towards digital painting, I was solely a black and white artist when I got the tablet, for example, these Bug warriors lineart, or beastish villains.

Don't use black for shading. Where is your light source?

Lay off the dodge and burn tools. The whole image is very flat at the moment.
Try reffing real animals that resemble your fantasy creature ie: Rhinos, lizards to see
how light plays on the texture of their skin and horns.

My apologies. I'll try to avoid black. When using color for shading, how dark should the color be? My lightsource would be coming from the left, behind the view. I was told by another person on another forum that I shouldn't use this form of lighting and that its called "pillow shading."

Yeah, I should use references. I've only done so in art classes when we would paint or sketch still life. On my own, I was using a method called "drawing from memory". Where I look at something and try to memorize it, then draw it on any medium a substantial amount of time later, anywhere from hours to days later. I did so thinking it would improve my ability to mentally visualize and retain imagery when drawing. For the dragon, I used knowledge I had of animal skin that I got from looking through zoological books at the library a while back. And also some recent real life knowledge as after college classes, I would sometimes visit some wild turtles in the nearby lake and they would literally get in my face, so I think that might have been a factor leading to this digital painting.

The actual method for digitally painting this piece was to use 3 of the brushes from the first row, layers with varying opacities, and layer masks. Outside of brushes, only other tool I used was the color replacement and smudge in a few a places. It looks like I accidentally reached the same effect as dodge and burn with layer opacities. In more recent works, I start using textured brushes.

And try drawing with pencil on paper. Digital medium isn't the best for studying.

Yes, the basics are important. I admit, I haven't studied either digitally or traditionally in a long while, and I don't think I could study with my drawing tablet due to its size. Before the tablet, I was solely a pencil and paper artist, usually inking my favorite works with a dip pen and india ink. 3 years worth of art filled an entire box with several three-ring binder folders so full, they had gone obtuse. I've been using a tablet for about a year and a half now, and in terms of drawing speed, the tablet became faster when I became use to it a few months in. In terms of studying, I guess it depends on the art school of thought. I still carry a pencil and small pad in case I need to draw on the go. My tablet is 12x19, so its incredibly immobile due to its incredible size.

I dunno. It has its own funky charm. I'd like to see a whole menagerie in this style.

I have only two others as of now. An albino dragon holding a knights head which remained unfinished and a Lady Butterfly which is also unfinished. I knew I was doing something wrong while working on them so I decided I would get back to them later when I got more knowledge.

you have an understanding of how things work, i mean you have the "eye" for the stuff, which means tons of potential. it's just you need to practice and draw on frequent basis. i'd suggest you to sketch and draw from life whenever possible. with serious practice, you can rock the socks off the audience in around a year i guess.

Yes, thank you for the advice, I will try to draw as much as possible. I definately do need a ton of practice as there are things I'm not sure about. Although I do draw a lot, I have neglected drawing from life, something like sketching a fruit on a table or a rock in the field. I was given the advice "draw everyday" by a fellow artist years ago.

I disagree, sometimes digital is superior for studying. It gets you past that whole 'I am putting pencil to paper actually creating something so I better make sure it is good' block that a lot of people tend to have. That can freeze you up. Quick sketching in something like SBP can be more immediate and there is less commitment to the piece itself since there is no physical medium. While i do sketch in my sketchbook (and any other scrap of paper I can find at work), if I am near my computer, i use the computer. The computer also gives you a quick method of reversing the image without having to use mirrors so that you can spot errors quicker.

I agree. When I'm solely using paper, it would take me a good 5 minutes to erase lines due to how heavy handed I was. The tablet had the unintended effect of making my strokes lighter. I no longer put so much pressure as to put a line dents on whatever I was drawing on.

Except that when you sit on a computer, you are more than likely to just search for a photo to draw from instead of drawing something from life, which in this instance kinda defeats the point that the OP should study. Don't take this as "you can't practice with digital media", but beginners usually get caught on the things that don't matter or don't really help (disconnection with eye/hand, too small tablet, elaborate tools/brushes/colours that are tempting to use while at the same time it's harder to actually be experimental [compared to say, slapping watercolour, Copics and wooden pencil on one page], getting caught on rendering images and things that don't matter, the fact that you can even zoom your image and so on).

I don't ever use references for my art. I always felt since I was young that it was shameful to be drawing while looking at another 2d image that isn't your creation, then presenting it as your own final work. In relation to photographs of actual things in nature, if anybody says its okay to use those as references, then by all means? I stress myself on originality and using only what I memorized in order to improve my ability to imagine things from nothing. Also, here is the original art of the dragon which I based the digital paiting on. I assure you, no references where used for this either, just pure muscle memory and imagination for this here Dragon Warrior later named the Greater Robust Dragon. I technically just enlarged the line art of the head to a high resolution, and painted over it with layers of colors using masks. The original concept image itself with lineart and plain colors took 2 hours.

For comparision, other dragon concepts I have, The Fighting Dragon, The Gold Dragon, and a Wind Dragon, the last two inspired by the asian legend of 4 beasts guarding a gold dragon.

Unless he has one of those creatures sitting around, he is going to have to search for photo reference anyway. My point was, the emphasis should be on the practicing part and not on the medium part. The implication that traditional media is better for practicing simply because it is traditional media is BS.

The temptation to leap in and do a full painting with traditional media is there as well. Of course the whole thing is a mind game you play with yourself. For some digital is better for others pencil and paper is.

I agree, I don't think digital tools and traditional tools are anymore valid than the other. We at some point in our history, just drew with fruit matter on cave walls before moving on to more effective mediums.

When I draw with paper and pencil, I get my sketchbook out and start (sometimes I look for a reference first, and then start) When doing digital drawings for the first few times, I spend hours trying to figure out the program, playing around with brushes/tools/settings/filters and so on, without drawing a single thing. Tried to do speedpaintings, but wasted the entire day on getting "proper" brushes. Using a pencil is also much more natural (thus easier at first) than a tablet, which takes a while to get used to.
Traditional media is in the beginning definitely better for practicing, as there are no distractions, and you can focus purely on getting a good drawing. Once you can draw the basics, you can start playing around with digital and it becomes more of a personal thing which is better for studying. I'd say to do a mix of both (:

I haven't tried speedpainting yet, and only about two weeks ago did I try out brushes other than those found in photoshop. I made my own brushes a while back and only used them a few times for my black and white works. Used in conjunction with paths to make speedlines.


I appreciate all the feedback, and I will try to improve using said feedback.

------

If anybody wants to see some samples of my inks and sketches that I have, I'll link some below:

Here is several pieces put on the same page for comparison, drawn from the mind. The are all ideas from trying to come up with an epic story with an interesting cast. On the extreme left, is when I was planning to tell the story in a very toonish style, while everything to the right of that is when I was trying to make my style more serious and fitting for something epic.

An example of a black and white comic page: The main character being some kind of knight.

[vineris]

I disagree, sometimes digital is superior for studying.

Sometimes. But for the most part it's just more complicated. There really aren't all that many ways to misuse a pencil, it's got an end that makes marks and another end that doesn't. If you draw with the pencil and the drawing sucks, you can usually figure out where the problem lies -- with your theoretical knowledge or your technique. A digital program has many, many more quirks and options and it's much more difficult to pinpoint the problem.

You notice that nobody is saying "buy an airbrush set with a dozen nozzles and use that to learn". Because that would be the same problem -- your tool getting in the way of your learning.

[Fulgrate]

Thank you all for your responses, I have read each and everyone's message and have taken them into account and will use this knowledge for further development and improvement.

Also, in regards to digital vs traditional, I am neutral on the subject in terms of which is overall "better", but I think digital is faster in terms of line speed once you get use to it. It took me several months of doing digital ink drawings before my speed was faster than with pencil on paper. Paper has a few advantages to it as well such as its mobility in terms of where and when to draw and immediacy.

Heres an example of a digital ink I did a few months: http://i.imgur.com/MdiKM.png